


And I'll Be Home

by Cinderscream



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: M/M, angst but that's nothing new for me, featuring the train scene but not sad, he's also a dumbass with gay feelings, sledge is also a gay dumbass with feelings but he's smarter than snafu, snafu? hiding injuries? it's more likely than you think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 12:26:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20008273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinderscream/pseuds/Cinderscream
Summary: There's a place in hell for rotten people like Snafu and the only way he knows that this isn't it, is because hell can't have something so good as Sledge in it too.





	And I'll Be Home

**Author's Note:**

> first pacific fic! just really wanted to get something out before i rewatch and write something a little longer

Contrary to popular belief, Snafu doesn’t have a death wish. 

There’s a place in hell just for people like him, he’s sure, with their rib cages filled with rotted wildflowers, hands tacky with blood, and pockets filled with stolen gold. At the very least, he’s sure heaven wouldn’t accept him, not with the sins smeared on his skin; or he could very well be in hell, he could have died a long time ago and never noticed because he hasn’t been able to breathe since he got here, fire in his lungs parched of water (but then it comes and it’s too much, the rain sinking ice cold through his skin). 

But he looks at Sledge, and knows something so good couldn’t exist in hell. 

They’re small, but their foxhole’s smaller and they’re squeezed tight together, shoulders and thighs pressed against each other, faint moonlight streaming through to shine over Sledge’s glossy red hair, illuminating the faint gleam of his earthy green eyes, giving shape to his long nose in the darkness of their hole. There’s something brittle in Snafu’s chest, little splinters of it filling the lining of his throat, and he wants to reach out, to touch, to-

His eyes blink slowly, and he swallows the glass down, coppery saliva on his tongue. He wants to cough, his breath rattling. 

“Go to sleep, Snafu”, Sledge whispers, though he’s not looking at him, eyes trying to search for stars Snafu (both of them) know he won’t find. 

“Can’t”, Snafu lies, his eyelids heavy. But he’s scared of sleeping, hand fisting in his shirt and itching to check- but he can’t. Not when Sledge might see. 

Snafu doesn’t have a death wish but- but he. He doesn’t want to see Sledge die more. 

The memories are too vivid, or well, parts of them are, the rest blurring in dizzying flashes of pounding boots through the slurp of mood, the overwhelming heat of nearby explosions making the rain pelting down feel almost like a blessing, flashes of gunfire looming heart-stoppingly close. And he had seen him, the man with the knife prowling through the jungle’s underbrush, his blade tipped in scarlet. He’d been going for Sledge. Snafu couldn’t have let him, Sledge had to,  _ had to _ live, and the wild, feral thing that crouched under his skin had awakened with a roar to tackle the man, the gun in his hand all but forgotten. 

He’s still covered in the man’s blood, copper stains brown against the faded green of his fatigues, but. Some of it is his. 

“Why don’t  _ you _ sleep?” Snafu asks back, pressing closer and hoping Sledge doesn’t notice. 

“Can’t sleep either”, Sledge answers, and Snafu can just see the almost-smile that twists his lips. “Got any solutions?”

“Tell me a story.” It comes out more vulnerable than Snafu intended, his throat constricting, and he thanks a god he’s never believed in (but has always been superstitious enough to mind) that the foxhole’s too dark to see his face in. There’s an ache behind his eyes and he doesn’t know if it’s a headache or tears. Sledge is quiet, and Snafu doesn’t know if maybe he shouldn’t have said anything, but then Sledge sighs, sinking further into the crumbly wall of the hole. 

“Okay”, he says, and there might be something vulnerable in his voice too. 

“There was a boy once, who lived his life in luxury, who’s parents loved him very much. They just wanted to keep him safe. But he wanted more. He wanted… He’s not sure what he wanted. He thought he wanted to serve his country, to.” Sledge breathes a sharp breath through his nose, a little like a bitter snort. “He wanted to do the right thing, I guess. So he joined the war. And he saw awful, awful things, felt like he was drowning, in sand and in blood and in the misery of the men who’d been there before him.”

Sledge’s voice cracks, and Snafu, through the thickening haze of his head, lays his hand on Sledge’s. 

“This story sucks”, he grumbles, and somehow manages to startle a wet laugh from Sledge. 

“Yeah well, I’m not done,” he whispers back, and, his hand trembling, he turns it over so that his sweaty palm can meet Snafu’s. They’re both still for a moment, waiting for the other to say something, do something. They don’t. 

Sledge clears his throat. 

“And he met someone. A, uh, a boy. He never thought a boy could ever be that pretty, or,” he laughs, a quiet rumble in his belly that Snafu can feel shake his whole body, “that he could be such a huge ass. You know, I’m still not sure if his eyes are blue are green but-”

Sledge twists, moving so he can face Snafu, the shadows of the hole obscuring his expression. 

“They’re damn beautiful.”

Snafu wonders if Sledge is made from the sun, because the brittle thing in his chest is buried in a sudden rush of purple asters that he knows he’s going to choke on. 

“Gene”, Snafu rasps, because even now, he’s not sure how tenuous this thing between him and Sledge is, how much Sledge might really want him. 

He closes his eyes when he feels hands cup his jaw, calloused thumbs rubbing his cheekbones, and his lips part, not expecting anything but. Sledge’s lips hesitantly meet his, hands moving from his jaw to the back of his head, fingers curling into the wisps of dark curls at his nape, and Snafu melts, his own hands wrapping around Sledge’s biceps. They haven’t been so much dancing around their feelings as they’ve been playing a game of hide and seek neither knew about, but it’s clear now, and Snafu can’t make it more clear when he nips at Sledge’s bottom lip and Sledge pulls him closer and-

Snafu has to pull back, the searing agony licking white-hot against his side impossible to ignore and he has to bite his lip to keep from crying out. 

“I’m sorry- Snaf I’m so sorry”, Sledge says hastily, trying to untangle himself from Snafu without alerting the camp, the enemy, and the whole damn island of what they’d been doing. 

“No, shhh, Gene shut up, it’s fine, you didn’t do anything I didn’t want”, Snafu pants, his fingers pressing along his side and cursing under his breath when they come away wet. His vision’s specked with dark spots and panic trails it’s itchy little claws along his spine.  _ Fuck fuck fuck _ he thinks, scrambling to make more room for himself to check the damange, but he only ends up shoving a bony elbow into Sledge’s ribs, and he can’t struggle without jostling his wound and the pressure behind his eyes might actually be tears-

“ _ Merriel _ ”, Sledge snaps, grabbing Snafu’s wrists, the worried crease of his brow just visible through the light filtering into the foxhole. 

Snafu steals a ragged, useless breath, taking one of his hands back to peel up his shirt, revealing the cloth he had used to patch the wound, stained nearly entirely black now. Sledge’s eyes turn wide, terror bleaching his skin and he curses a few choice expletives, placing a shaking hand against the blood smearing Snafu’s skin. 

“Why the  _ fuck _ didn’t you tell anyone”, he hisses, moving to dig through the bags that take up the rest of the space in the hole, every movement frantic. 

“Dammit Snafu are you trying to get yourself killed? Because if it’s not the Japs then it’s going to be the goddamn infection”, he rambles angrily under his breath, pulling a bottle of alcohol they’d scavenged out from the bottom and the final scraps of Snafu’s shirt. 

“I couldn't let them get you”, Snafu slurs, wincing as Sledge removes the soaked haphazard bandage. 

There’s a needle and thread in Sledge’s hands too and it’s an awful, tense hour that Sledge spends tending to Snafu’s wound. He’s steady, but that’s not surprising, not when he grew up with a doctor for a father, but it doesn’t help that he can see the dazed, scared look in Snafu’s eyes, the mask of undaunted bravery turned to mist in the night. So he looks as little as possible, concentrating on keeping his fingers from slipping on the slick blood still seeping from the wound until it’s closed up.

“We’re finding a doctor in the morning” he says, voice a quiet, tired rasp. They don't kiss again, but Snafu presses himself close, and they fall asleep with their fingers intertwined between them. 

…

They don’t talk about it again until they’re on the train home. 

Burgie, Peck, and Leyden are gone, so it’s just Snafu, Sledge, and the twilight twinkling outside the windows, stars fixed in place while the green land blurs together, mountains into trees into plains. 

Snafu thinks about it as he presses a finger to his lips, tracing the space Sledge’s mouth once occupied and he wonders if he’d taste different now that they’re both cleaned up, that the salt and dirt and rain water’s been scrubbed from their skin. He wants to ask, but Sledge isn't looking at him, too busy drinking in the scenery of his freedom, hands tucked under his chin, the bright rust red of his hair looking penny bright in the train’s dim lamplight. War hasn’t scarred him, not physically; he looks like a marine poster boy in his uniform and Snafu would still think him that helpless boy from Alabama if not for the darkness swelling in the depths of his eyes. 

And Snafu thinks,  _ he doesn’t deserve me _ . Because Snafu’s a curse, touched by the devil since birth, and there’s rotted flowers in his chest and death on his doorstep and why did he ever, ever think that Sledge would ever ( _ could ever _ ) want him after the war? When Sledge could find a darling Alamba girl and be married and be  _ normal _ , and who in their right fucking mind would sacrifice that for  _ Merriel Shelton _ ? Sledge isn’t the snafu, and Snafu’s been a fucked up situation for so long that he can’t even remember what normality had ever been like. He doubts he’ll find it now. 

He takes a drag of his cigarette, smoke swirling in delicate wisps around his face, and he wonders how he's supposed to tell Sledge goodbye without kissing him or his entire chest caving in. 

The answer comes accompanied with the rise of the moon and the bitter tang of regret on Snafu’s tongue. 

Sledge is asleep, youth seeping back into his relaxed expression. Snafu is loathe to leave him, but he can’t say goodbye, he  _ can’t can’t can _ ’t, so he carefully traces a memory of him into his mind, throat hitching (but he won’t cry, no he absolutely won’t), aching to touch. He forces himself to turn, bag slung over his shoulder, and though he pauses, chewing on his lip, he doesn’t look back. 

The New Orleans crowd that greets him is vast, but there’s no one there for him, and it doesn’t feel like his chest’s been crushed. No, it feels more like he’s left his heart on the train, clasped in Sledge’s hand, and there’s a black hole growing in its place, swallowing everything inside him until he’s a husk of a person, an empty vessel wandering the faintly familiar streets of New Orleans.

…

There had never been a time when Snafu had not been infuriatingly, breathtakingly beautiful. Sledge doesn’t hate him for that, it would be awful illogical. He could be an awful bully, a son of a bitch, a bastard, a stupid stupid idiot, and Sledge hates is that he  _ still _ fell in love with him. Because Snafu’s version of affection is covered in barbs, and his affection is rare, but he tried, and he tried for Sledge and the war had melded them into a sharp amalgam of a person, where Sledge could be the fucked up bastard and only Snafu could be his balm and vice versa. 

Sledge had been planning on asking Snafu to go with him to Alabama before they got to New Orleans. He doesn’t know what he wanted from the war. Still doesn’t know, really, but he does know that he wants Snafu, Merriel, and the butterflies he produces in his chest, his seafoam eyes, soft mouth and barbed tongue. Sledge doesn’t know if he could find anyone like Snafu (no, he can’t, Snafu’s the kind of treasure found in the cracks of the earth, buried so deep that anyone who doesn’t dig could ever find him) and he doesn’t want to try. 

When he wakes up alone on the train, he feels the mirror-break shatter of betrayal rattle the world around him. His heart stops when he realizes he’s still in New Orleans and people are still climbing off, and he thinks  _ he left, just go home _ , but he’s climbing to his feet, yanking his bag with him, and the train’s rumbling and the doors are closing. 

He only just makes it off train, stumbling into the crowd. His heart’s in his throat as he scans the people around him, well aware that if he can’t find Snafu, that he’ll have to sleep at the station until the next train arrives or risk trying to look for Snafu through the dark, humid streets of New Orleans. 

“Damn it, Snafu”, he murmurs, feeling hopelessness begin to settle in until - there! 

Sledge spies the familiar slender frame leaning against a pole, trembling hands struggling to light a cigarette, his bag at his feet. 

“Need some help with that?” Sledge asks when he’s within hearing range, and Snafu startles so badly he drops his cigarette and fumbles to keep his lighter from meeting the same fate. Sledge takes his hand in both of his, and pins him into stillness with a look. 

“You left.”

“I didn’t know how to say goodbye.”

There’s guilt mixed in the yellow-green of his eyes and Sledge softens, the world shrinking to a pinprick, to him and Snafu, and the freckles hiding in the corner of his eyes. 

“You don’t have to, then”, Sledge breathes, and though they can’t kiss with so many people around them, Sledge’s arms are just as warm and comforting as his lips, and Sledge knows he’ll have Snafu to himself when they get home. Their talk can wait til morning.


End file.
